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Facebook shuts down the M assistant, but the features it inspired will live on

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Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends
Facebook’s personal assistant experiment just got the ax before ever reaching a wide audience. Facebook recently confirmed that the beta version Facebook M will be discontinued on January 19, though some features that the program inspired, including M suggestions, will continue.

M is Facebook’s version of a virtual assistant, but mixed human operators with artificial intelligence in order to continually train the system. Facebook is discontinuing that human element — which was only available to around 2,000 people — and is offering staff other positions within the company. M Trainers worked alongside the software to assist the chatbot, which is able to handle tasks like booking an Uber or making dinner reservations.

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As virtual assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Cortana grow in both popularity and features, the full Facebook M isn’t going to ever make it out of beta. Facebook M took a different approach by mixing A.I. and staff. What Facebook is keeping from the so-called experiment is M’s approach to making suggestions inside chats, with shortcuts for heading to your calendar when chatting weekend plans with a friend or a one-tap phone call when suggesting moving the conversation offline. The chatbot feature later expanded to also suggest GIFs and even some common responses.

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“We launched this project to learn what people needed and expected of an assistant, and we learned a lot,” a Facebook representative said in a statement to Digital Trends. “We’re taking these useful insights to power other A.I. projects at Facebook. We continue to be very pleased with the performance of M suggestions in Messenger, powered by our learnings from this experiment.”

Launched in 2015, the beta project eventually spawned widely available features like the M suggestions. While participants in the beta program could start up a chat with M directly, M suggestions are integrated into existing conversations. When chatting in Messenger, the M suggestions tool looks for keywords and then will offer related suggestions like “make a plan” or “request a ride.” While the original beta is closing, M suggestions are sticking around, according to the company.

At the launch, the company was hoping M would become a go-to for information. Facebook didn’t comment on why the beta Facebook M is shutting down after more than two years.

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